


We Live Tragedy

by parttimehuman



Series: Tragedy [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Please Proceed With Caution, Thiam, Tragedy, and the darkness will remain unresolved, this fic is a dark place
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-06-05 17:10:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15175427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parttimehuman/pseuds/parttimehuman
Summary: Theo's reality is painful enough as it is. But then it all falls apart. Breaking Liam's heart has never been part of the plan.





	We Live Tragedy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [osirismind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/osirismind/gifts), [maraudersourwolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maraudersourwolf/gifts).



> I feel weird gifting somthing as dark as this to someone, but Francis explicitly asked for heavy angst and Des encouraged me to go all the way. (This is not all the way, obviously, but I wasn't ready for that.)  
> This is thanks to you two, so you take the blame.  
> <3

Sunshine is not supposed to hurt on your face. You’re not supposed to wake up from restless sleep, open your eyes to a world with no visible monsters in it and feel more afraid than trapped inside a nightmare. You’re not supposed to swallow when you taste fire on your tongue, and you’re not supposed to leave the unbearable heat inside your truck to lie down on the ground in front of it. 

 

Truth be told, when you really start thinking about it, it seems like you’re not supposed to be Theo Raeken. 

 

Waking up is the worst part, always. It’s all good as long as he’s long in a state of partial unconsciousness, but when his vision sharpens, and his breaths become audible in his own ears, when the world that spins too fast for him lies around and not just inside him, when yet another day starts and his shattered heart is somehow still beating, he wishes it wasn’t. He wishes for the courage to end it. 

 

But courage doesn’t find him. It’s like he pushes it away like a magnet with the same polarity. He’s bound to live without it. But it’s bad enough that he’s bound to live at all.

 

There once was a sister, long dark hair waving in the wind, curious green eyes in constant search of the world’s prettiest secrets, a smile on her innocent face until life took it away. There was death, and in Theo’s head, death was the beginning. Or the end, depending on how you want to look at it. 

 

There was dark water and crashing waves, and it all looked pretty from his spot on top of the little bridge. The sounds were ugly, but he ignored them like the deep voice in the back of his head told him too. His body was weak the one day and then a little stronger every day after that. The part of him that was supposed to be hurting over the girl’s too young death was untouchable, out of reach, her heart beating in his chest, and from then on, she’s been with him wherever he goes, whispering inside his head, painful things mostly, but he believes them all. 

 

There was darkness. Shadows thrown over the reality he’s lived in. Every room in his home was a dungeon, none had windows. He was forced to rest and forced to feed himself. He was forced to share the things going on inside his head, to describe an entire world he was merely a part of, even if said world lived inside him. He remembers the huge masks on their heads, the dreadful costumes, the electric jolts being sent through his body with every touch of thick, black gloves. They didn’t listen when he told them how scared he was, only asked him to re-enter his inner self, to feel inside him and report back to them. He felt like their pet for a couple of years, and then like their experiment. 

 

_ The first chimera,  _ they said, but the voice always came from inside his head instead of beneath the hideous masks. And then they started feeding him pills that paralyzed him, and that was when Theo had his first encounter with pure panic, when he learned to be afraid of other things than death. They only had to pop one pill into his screaming mouth to make him wish they’d kill him instead. 

 

He remembers time stopping for eternities, remembers his surprise every time they returned to the cold walls of his cell and apparently, a lifetime still hadn’t passed. He remembers counting his own shallow breaths in a pathetic attempt to hold onto the illusion of sanity. He remembers swimming towards the surface again every time the effect of the pills on his body faded, remembers the air in his lungs pulling him up, remembers how much the last couple of feet before reaching the shore hurt, like dragging his body through barbed wire they’d kindly set on fire for him. 

 

There was brief hope when they sent him out in the world to execute their harshly spoken commands, but the hope was misplaced terribly. He wasn’t free, he wasn’t himself, and murdering didn’t feel good. It had him hooked nonetheless. At that time, he was already seeing the avalanche being set off on top of the mountain that threw a shadow over his life, but there was nowhere to run, no safe place, no hope of salvation for the chimera of death. 

 

There was a failed attempt to please the masked operators of his strings, a murder of a former friend, but not even that worked, and in the end, he knew that it was only appropriate for the ground to crack open beneath his feet and swallow him. He knew it was time for his punishment when eyes blue like the ocean and dark like a storm were the only thing he was holding onto while being dragged down, when the hand he reached out strained towards the beta wolf with the anger issues, when he knew that being a failure was one thing, but letting someone steal your heart even if it wasn’t yours to begin with, you had to rot in hell. 

 

And that he did. He was half-conscious all the time, never asleep, but never in control of neither his body nor his mind. She visited him every hours, the voice in the back of his had that suddenly had a face again, but not the same as it used to, and her fingers were too long and too pale and too skinny as they dug into his chest to rip the heart out that didn’t belong to him. 

 

_ Murderer,  _ she hissed.  _ You are a thief of hearts and lives.  _

 

She was killing him slowly, but he never reached his death. He simply lay there, an invisible weight pressing the air out of his lungs, shackles fixating his arms and legs without really existing, an iron grip never leaving his throat. He was starving and melting from the heat and bleeding to almost-death from the hole in his chest. He was suffocating. Was losing all the battles his conquered body couldn’t fight anymore. Was falling. Was being torn apart. 

 

But it never ended him. It dragged him beyond death, to the darkest place there was. And then it started over again. And over. And over. There were no tears inside him anymore. No blood in his veins, no air in his lungs. There was no life. And no mercy. 

 

And then there was a big bang. And ground beneath his feet. And ground above his head. And then an earthquake, and terrible noise and then, air. Air around his fingers. 

 

There was a boy with blue eyes that shone in a dangerous yellow and a sword. There was a war. And an opportunity. There were lots of discussions and ghostriders that still scared Theo, because back in life, fear was a different thing. There were memories he carried but others didn’t, and that was a miracle in itself. There was blood and there were gunshots. Hissing whiplashes that made him jump. There was a lot less power in what was left of the first chimera, but there also was an urgent need to help the town that had refused to be a home to him for all his life. 

 

There was dust and fire and darkness and a siren. There was a plan and the doubts he had about it in his mind. There were a few broken noses and an elevator. There was Liam. It still doesn’t taste right on his tongue to mix all those things together, the battles life forced on them and the ones they chose when they looked each other in the eyes for a long moment. 

 

_ I will fight with you.  _

 

_ Let’s fight.  _

 

There was the end of a war and a victory that tasted bitter, ruins that would never be rebuilt into the same lives they’d once been. There was a pack and an ally who still wasn’t trusted, and he understood, he really did, but it didn’t help his suffering. There was an end that should have been a beginning, but for Theo, the ends just keep coming like the sunrises. 

 

He might be free of the Dread Doctors now, and the sword serving to send him to hell might be destroyed, but misery seeps through the cracks of Theo’s soul, filling him up. He’s only waiting for the day he’ll be full and drown. 

 

His world is a place of hell on earth already, but even that falls apart, implodes beneath his feet. And of course, because it couldn’t hurt anymore otherwise, it’s Liam who unveils the true extent of the tragedy that is Theo’s life.

 

“Hey,” the beta wolf says softly, sitting down on the ground next to Theo. 

 

Theo is tempted to look into the beautiful eyes he knows are directed at him, but he hates the concern in them and in that moment, he doesn’t think he can take it. 

 

“What’s up?” he mumbles in reply. 

 

“I’ve been looking for you,” Liam tells him, reminding Theo why he regrets being brought back from hell, not that he could have avoided it. 

 

“I’m right here,” Theo shrugs. In the middle of an abandoned parking space, chilling on the concrete, not having eaten for a couple of days, reeking worse than any animal, as he can only assume. Business as usual. 

 

“I’ve spoken to your parents,” Liam begins. 

 

Theo doesn’t know where he’s going with this, but it can only be a bad, a terribly bad direction. He doesn’t have parents. They’re monsters, and if they came near Liam, he might as well burn the whole town to ashes. 

 

“You haven’t been taking your meds, Theo,” he continues, his voice sounding pained, “it’s been too long.” 

 

Theo doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Does Liam really want him to go through all of that torture again? Look into the Dread Doctors’ hellish masks? Let them paralyze him? Feel his own body being drained of life? 

 

“Theo,” Liam pleads when Theo doesn’t react in any other way than by willing back the tears burning in his eyes. “Please. I’m worried about you.” 

 

“I’m fine,” Theo presses out stubbornly. 

 

“You’re not fine,” Liam shakes his head sadly. Theo wants to kill the person responsible for the pretty boy’s misery, and then he realizes that it’s him, and then he just wants to find the sword for Liam to use to get rid of him for good. 

 

“You’ve been out here on your own for weeks,” Liam keeps talking, his voice weak and shaky. “Have you been eating? You don’t look so great.”

 

“I’ve survived worse,” Theo growles in response. “I’m the chimera of death, remember? I’ve been through the Dread Doctors’ loving hospitality and a few supernatural wars and hell. I’m not going to starve without your Mom’s lasagna.” 

 

“What are you talking about?” Liam’s strangled voice asks. “Dread Doctors? I told you not to read that book.” 

 

Theo almost laughs. “Fuck that book,” he replies, “the reality is so much more fun. All the pain and the fear and the suffering. They’re really good at corrupting your soul. But I made it out, right?” When Liam starts crying, single tears falling from his lashes and onto his cheeks, Theo feels like he has to keep going, has to assure him that everything’s alright, but somehow, it doesn’t work on Liam. It doesn’t seem to calm him when Theo continues. “Hey, we defeated the ghostriders, remember? You and me in that elevator at the hospital? Kicking ass until you could tell Monroe that she’d lost? A werewolf and a chimera as an invincible team against all odds? Remember?” 

 

“Oh my god,” Liam whispered, his lip trembling, his eyes drifting into the distance. “They were right.” He reaches out for Theo’s arm, and for a moment, Theo wishes that touches wouldn’t hurt him, that another person’s skin on his own wouldn’t burn like a fire, but it does. 

 

“Stop crying,” he begs as he sits up. He didn’t think his stolen heart could break any further, but he was wrong. Terribly wrong. He wants to hug the boy in front of him, but he can’t, not without burning himself. 

 

“You’re sick,” Liam sobs, and nothing has ever hurt Theo more than the look in his eyes as they refocus on him. 

 

“I told you,” he tries to brush it off, “I’m fine.” 

 

“No,” Liam spits out, shaking his head with a vehemence that doesn’t make sense to Theo. “You’re sick. You sit out here while I’m worried about you and I don’t even know what world you live in. Werewolves aren’t real, Theo!” 

 

Theo doesn’t know how to respond. He doesn’t understand why Liam seems so upset. He didn’t do anything wrong this time. 

 

“There’s nothing supernatural happening in Beacon Hills! The Dread Doctors are  stupid characters from a stupid book I fucking told you not to read! You’re parents are beating themselves up for letting you run away! And I don’t even know what you mean by ghostriders or what our guidance counselor has to do with anything, but it doesn’t matter. None of that shit is real!”

 

“What… what do you mean?” Theo can’t think. He can only see the tears in Liam’s eyes, doesn’t understand the words, can only hear him shouting. 

 

“Theo,” Liam whimpers. He’s so broken. He was never supposed to look so broken. “Let me take you home. Take your meds.” 

 

“No,” Theo shakes his head. He can’t. They only want to get him back under their control. They manipulated Liam into dragging him back to them, he’s sure of it. “I can’t,” he says decidedly. “No.” 

 

“I’m begging you,” Liam insists, but Theo is in flight mode. He turns away from the hand reaching out of him. He can’t let it take him. He will shift and run if he has to. 

 

Liam stills and sobs a few more times. “Not even if I tell you I love you?” he whispers. Theo is sure he wouldn’t have understood him without his supernatural hearing senses. 

 

A part of him wants to give in. A part of him want to fall into Liam’s arms and tell him that he loves him too, that no matter how clueless he is about what exactly this love is, he knows that it has everything to do with Liam. He wants to believe Liam, wants to listen and promise to do everything to get better. Wants to let the other boy take care of him. Wants to be together and sacrifice himself for that. 

 

The other part is stronger. 

 

“No,” he says, and he never looks back into the sad blue eyes as he runs, knowing that the reality around him will falter if he does, and it might not be the same reality that the rest of the world lives in, but it’s the only one he’s got. And so he holds onto it. And he never returns to Beacon Hills.

 

_ Well done, brother,  _ the voice in his head echoes as the rest of his brain shuts off. Wolf and Coyote take over. And Tara leads their way. 

 

_ It’s you and me again. We live.  _

 

“We live tragedy,” he replies. It’s not an accusation, or a question. It doesn’t change anything. It’s just a statement. 

 

_ We live tragedy.  _

 

And so they live.


End file.
